Game of Thrones stars before they were famous

But he also offered a word of warning for diehards expecting all their Westeros-related questions to be answered.

"It leaves a lot open," he said. "It doesn't wrap things up in the same way that the last few episodes of the last few seasons have."

If Game of Thrones author George RR Martin had his way the show would feature even more than it currently does.

"I wish we had more episodes," he said, speaking to the New York Times from his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. "I'd love to have 13 episodes. With 13 episodes, we could include smaller scenes that we had to cut, scenes that make the story deeper and richer."

With fans worldwide gearing up for the fourth season's finale, set to air in the US over the weekend (Monday in Australia), Harington revealed he'd be back in Jon Snow's blacks in late July.

Celebrity fans of the show are also preparing for the HBO series' 66-minute send-off.

On Friday, actress Drew Barrymore posted a snap to Instagram of herself wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with "Mother of Dragons", her two children by her side.

Australian rapper Iggy Azalea summed things up concisely on Twitter: "Game of Thrones on Sunday is going to be epic."

Surprisingly, Harington's in the same boat.

"We never get to see it beforehand," he said. "I watch it like everyone else does when it comes out."

Meanwhile the family of fellow Thrones star Alfie Allen can't leave alone the idea of having their own cameo role in the hit series.

Allen's father, Keith Allen, claims he has auditioned for a role as a slave who leads a rebellion in the bloodthirsty show.

"Every scene is a bloodbath. Frankly I think I’m cut out for that," the actor told The Times. Allen also revealed he had previously auditioned for the part of his son Alfie’s on-screen father but said he deliberately failed the screen test.

He told The Times the offer was "a bit cheesy, a bit obvious" so he "did a rubbish audition".

She told fans she turned down the role because she "felt uncomfortable" with a storyline featuring incest. Alfie Allen later denied his sister’s claim about the role. He told entertainment website Vulture: "I heard about this, yeah. The only thing I’m going to say on that is that it’s not true."

The epic tale of treachery among a series of families vying for power in a medieval-style world is currently its fourth series. With an average 18 million US viewers per episode, this season has surpassed The Sopranos as HBO's most-watched series. And with numbers like that, the characters don't belong solely to Martin anymore.

But Martin was quick to point out that his role with the HBO series has always been secondary. He's a co-executive producer and has written one episode each season. He says he tries not to fret over television revisions. "But," he said, "small changes can lead to big changes."

Take the musician Marillion, from season one. On HBO, Marillion is maimed - his tongue plucked out - at the whim of King Joffrey and then vanishes from the show. That isn't the case in the books, where he served as the fall guy in Lord Petyr Baelish's murder of Lysa Arryn (shown on HBO this season). "So that has to be changed" for the TV show, Martin said of her murder. "The butterfly effects are accumulating."

And then there was that scene from his first novel, A Game of Thrones, that didn't make it into season one, when the Starks were traveling to King's Landing, the capital of the Seven Kingdoms, with the royal family. The sisters Sansa and Arya Stark get invited to tea and lemon cakes with Queen Cersei, but Arya wants to go hunt for rubies with the butcher's boy. And the sisters argue about it.

Martin said he misses the scene because it adds texture and helps establish early on the characters of and relationship between the sisters. Though not in the show, the scene was used as part of the successful auditions for Sophie Turner, who plays Sansa, and Maisie Williams, who is Arya.

But what about his dream, his vision? Has HBO fulfilled it? He said he was pleased overall by the costume and set designs and special effects. If he were more involved, he said, there would be tweaks and twists he'd suggest. "No, no, let's make the helmet more like this."

But there is one crucial element that frustrates him: the portrayal of the cruel and monumental Iron Throne. "The HBO throne has become iconic," he has written on his blog. "And well it might. It's a terrific design, and it has served the show very well. There are replicas and paperweights of it in three different sizes. Everyone knows it. I love it. I have all those replicas right here, sitting on my shelves."

But, he continued: "It's not the Iron Throne I see when I'm working on 'The Winds of Winter.' It's not the Iron Throne I want my readers to see. The way the throne is described in the books ... HUGE, hulking, black and twisted, with the steep iron stairs in front, the high seat from which the king looks DOWN on everyone in the court ... my throne is a hunched beast looming over the throne room, ugly and asymmetric ... The HBO throne is none of those things."

Whichever throne fans prefer, the success of Thrones on TV has turned Martin into something of a star. (The show has been renewed for fifth and sixth seasons.) A man of hobbitlike mirth and girth, he isn't quite the classic People-driven figure of pop-culture stardom. "It's been surreal," he said during the interview. "You always hope for success. But this takes it to a whole other level, to being a celebrity, which has gotten old fast."

Famous or not, Martin is still obliged to sit down each day and write because millions of agitated fans are waiting, hoping that his next novel, The Winds of Winter is coming - soon. He's writing too slowly for some fans' tastes, but quality takes time. When asked about his progress on The Winds of Winter, all Martin would say, a sigh tinting his voice, was, "It's going along."

AAP/PA, with New York Times

12 comments

You know nothing Jon Snow.................sorry had to do it!

Commenter

SM

Location

melbourne

Date and time

June 13, 2014, 12:10PM

I do know some things..

Commenter

Jon Snow

Location

Date and time

June 13, 2014, 2:44PM

I just wish GRRM would just finish the damn books once and for all and put us all out of our misery. The last book was too long and rather boring. It went on forever and not much happened. Let's face it GRRM is not a young fit man. He may cark it before he get's to finish the series. And the TV series needs an ending.

The show is definitely better than the books because they are just too involved. It can become quite a chore to read the books.

Commenter

em

Location

Date and time

June 13, 2014, 12:24PM

He has told the producers and the directors how the story ends in case he dies. He knows he might not make it and I think a part of him likes that he could die and leave the ultimate cliffhanger.

Commenter

AussieA

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Date and time

June 13, 2014, 1:09PM

"AussieA' - GRRM parting this mortal coil before he finishes the series, thus leaving us without an ending, is not a 'cliffhanger', it's a catastrophe!

While I'm here, funny how some of the characters from book to screen have become even 'larger', if you like, and more popular - whereas, I am still struggling to remember the name of Ned Stark's son who became King of the North and copped it at that wedding...

That's possibly one disadvantage of reading the books first - you perhaps don't invest as much in characters who you know at a certain point are going to get 'terminated, with extreme prejudice'...

Whereas, the relationship between Tyrion, Tywin and Cersei, in particular, is quite exceptionally imagined by GRRM and brought to life on screen. I can't imagine anyone else playing those roles.

Commenter

Hans von Schlappenplanker

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Date and time

June 13, 2014, 3:44PM

Yes thats lovely but its time for Mr Martin to stop swanning around being a star and finish the books!

Commenter

JG

Location

Date and time

June 13, 2014, 12:40PM

I gave up on the books as I think 4 years is too long to wait. As for that crap that quality takes time a lot of other writers seem to manage to get their books out at a decent interval. I also gave up on Robert Jordan too, and he died before he finished his series.

Commenter

pisces

Location

Chippendale

Date and time

June 13, 2014, 3:40PM

Do the journalists at Fairfax realise that there are other TV shows apart from GOT? There has hardly been a day in the last three months where GOT has not featured on The Age website and sometimes two stories at a time at the expense of every other television show. How about a diversity of opinion for a change.

Commenter

dpk168

Location

Ballaarat

Date and time

June 13, 2014, 3:01PM

Agree. Have never seen Game of Thrones or heard of Jon Snow.

Commenter

Catherine

Location

Date and time

June 13, 2014, 6:27PM

While the 10 episodes of GoT runs, there are no other shows. "You know nothing dpk168 ... Winter is coming."